We start this week with Sam’s dive into a looming piece of anti-porn legislation, prudish algorithms, and eggs. After the break, Matthew tells us about the open source software that powered Ukraine’s drone attack against Russia. In the subscribers-only section, Emanuel explains how even pro-AI subreddits are dealing with people having AI delusions. Listen to…
Open source software used by hobbyist drones powered an attack that wiped out a third of Russiaâs strategic long range bombers on Sunday afternoon, in one of the most daring and technically coordinated attacks in the war. In broad daylight on Sunday, explosions rocked air bases in Belaya, Olenya, and Ivanovo in Russia, which are…
đ Subscribe to 404 Media to get The Abstract, our newsletter about the most exciting and mind-boggling science news and studies of the week. For nine days in September 2023, the world was rocked by mysterious seismic waves that were detected globally every 90 seconds. Earth trembled again the following month with an identical global…
Last month, I wrote an article about how schools were not prepared for ChatGPT and other generative AI tools, based on thousands of pages of public records I obtained from when ChatGPT was first released. As part of that article, I asked teachers to tell me how AI has changed how they teach. The response…
The moderators of a pro-artificial intelligence Reddit community announced that they have been quietly banning âa bunch of schizopostersâ who believe âthey’ve made some sort of incredible discovery or created a god or become a god,â highlighting a new type of chatbot-fueled delusion that started getting attention in early May. âLLMs [Large language models] today…
The surveillance company Flock told employees at an all-hands meeting Friday that its new people search product, Nova, will not include hacked data from the dark web. The announcement comes a little over a week after 404 Media broke the news about internal tension at the company about plans to use breached data, including from…
This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we discuss an exciting revamp of The Abstract, tech betrayals, and the “it’s for cops” defense. EMANUEL: Most of you already know this but we are expanding The Abstract,…
If youâve left a comment on a YouTube video, a new website claims it might be able to find every comment youâve ever left on any video youâve ever watched. Then an AI can build a profile of the commenter and guess where you live, what languages you speak, and what your politics might be….
Content warning: This article contains descriptions of sexual harassment. Judd Stone, the former Solicitor General of Texas resigned from his position in 2023 following sexual harassment complaints from colleagues in which he allegedly discussed âa disturbing sexual fantasy [he] had about me being violently anally raped by a cylindrical asteroid in front of my wife…
This week is a bumper episode all about Flock, the automatic license plate reading (ALPR) cameras across the U.S. First, Jason explains how we found that ICE essentially has backdoor access to the network through local cops. After the break, Joseph tells us all about Nova, the planned product that Flock is making which will…
